Organic Chemistry

Organic Compounds
-covalently bonded compounds containing carbon, excluding carbonates and oxides

Carbon Bonding and the Diversity of Organic Compounds

Carbon's electronic structure allows it to bind itself to form chains and rings, to bind covalently to other elements and different errangements.

Carbon-Carbon Bonding

Catenation: the covalent bonding of an element to itself to form chains or rings
The carbons in the structures can be linked by single, double, or triple covalent bonds.

Carbon Bonding to Other Elements

Hydrocarbons: they are composed of only carbon and hydrogen, they are the simplest organic compounds

Arrangement of Atoms

Some compounds may contain the same atoms but have different properties. The bonding capabilities are what make this possible.

Structural Formulas

-indicates the number and types of atoms present in a molecule and also shows the bonding arrangement of the atoms, they are made smaller to make them easier to read
-they do not show the accurate 3 dimensional shape

Isomers

Structural Isomers: the atoms are bonded together in different orders
-they can have physical or chemical properties

Geometric Isomers
Isomers in which the order of the atom bonding is the same but the arrangement of the atoms in space is different